Phil 4.18.16

Page 12, at the end of General Discussion: Based on the ‘like me’ perception of others’ actions, social encounters are more interpretable than supposed by classical ‘solipsism’ theories such as Piaget’s. Infants can use themselves as a framework for understanding the subjectivity of others and reciprocally learn about the possibilities inherent in their own actions by observing the actions of others. Through social interaction with other intentional agents who are viewed as ‘like me,’ infants develop a richer social cognition

So we’re wired to trust that other people’s(!) actions will be like our own. We learn early (only?) behavior through empathy. That sets the pattern we use going forwards. And it is also wired into us. This suggests two things. First, it’s hackable. Second, there are affordances for social and system trust that should be used in the designs of systems that one, may have a ‘social back end’ (IR/Search/GPS), and two, systems that appear to be social need to be carefully constructed so that human trusting intention isn’t short-circuited.

Continuing to work on Adjacency and PageRank java code. Working from home today, so that means updating, checking out and fixing what’s broke.